Tom Wolff Demonstrating Leadership

Below is the full transcript of the billionaire Toto Wolff CEO of Mercedes F1 explaining excellence and demonstrating leadership. I love where he says "you go in there like a ghost" this is about attention to detail, being completely of service, excellence without ego and providing a peerless experience for your client...

"I don't want to have anyone experience that he or she goes on the toilet and it's dirty. If the lobby isn't properly presented, how does the car look under the bonnet? I mean, we have hospitality at the centre of the paddock.

You only get to go into hospitality if you're someone really, really important for the team. You're a sponsor, you're a husband or wife of a sponsor.People expect this to be Formula 1, so you expect to have a restaurant Michelin-like meal because you're in Formula 1.

And I don't want to have anyone experience that he or she goes on the toilet and it's dirty. You know, we hired a hygiene manager and we had a whole team and

I said to them, okay, I'm going to explain to you how that goes because it's important. I showed them how I wanted the toilet to be cleaned and how I wanted them to use the brush, not having crap on the brush when you put it back.

And then how you clean the sink and put all the towels back in there. And then I said, on the Friday, free practice day, I want you to be in there every 15 minutes and clean it on the Saturday every five minutes. And on the Sunday, after every single person that goes on the toilet, you go in there like a ghost.

You're out there after 30 seconds and it needs to be immaculate for every single guest because I don't want the wife of a CFO going in there and thinking, what's this? It's a public toilet. So, over the time, we had a process, we had a checklist, like when you're flying an airplane. And since then, it's always been a pleasure for me to go in there."

To me this is leadership and excellence all wrapped up into one. He knows what he wants for his guests (customers) to experience and he is willing to "get his hands dirty" to explain / demonstrate it. He wants the best standards and is willing to do what it takes to create a culture that is capable of delivering them from the tiniest shitty details.

Toto Wolff
CEO of Mercedes
According to The Times, in one year he received £6 million salary plus £25 million in dividends from his ownership stake.Because he holds ~33% of the team and the team’s value is estimated at billions of dollars (e.g., ~$6 billion) the stake itself carries significant value.

This is the link to the video if you want to see Tom explaining this.

Howard

As well as business and marketing I coach and mentor many people re their personal and professional lives. If you want to explore your personal development or an issue that's keeping you stuck, I'd be very happy to have a chat with you, to do so contact me here